Feudal
by SSRandomness
Summary: In which a young Liza Hawkeye moves to the faraway country of Japan with her father and meets a determined young Ronin named Roi. Warring States Period AU. One-Shot. Happy Royai Day 2014!


Feudal

In which a young Liza Hawkeye moves to the faraway country of Japan with her father and meets a young Ronin named Roi.

Long have I been fond of the history of Japan, specifically the Sengoku Jidai, or Warring States Period. I thought it would be fun to apply that time period to Royai, and if I have my druthers, I'll continue this story in chapters. We'll see. ;P

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_Feudal_

Liza Hawkeye is only twelve years old when her feet first touch down on the Island called Honshu. She cannot tell if the people surrounding the busy pier are staring at her because she is obviously a foreigner, with her blond hair and strange dress, or if they are staring because she has just vomited into a nearby crab trap.

She is exhausted, her long voyage from far away England having been spent in the dark gully of a massive ship. Nevertheless, her eyes do not tire. They stare blearily out from the shabby palanquin that she rides in beside her father, taking in the immense differences in the world that now surrounds her. After a week or so in their new home, she can name many of the things that she finds most fascinating about the land of Japan. Bamboo. Kimono. Geta. Buddha. But her favorite of all these new sights is called the katana. Liza likes the look of a katana very much indeed.

The house her father has purchased is almost in shambles, and as soon as she sees it, she feels oddly at home. This, she assumes, is because it reminds her of their old decaying house in Britain. Some things, she is beginning to learn, never really change.

There is a woman attending Liza and her father who simply refuses to leave their service. Her name is Kyoko, and her family has served the masters of their new dilapidated home for generations. Try as her father might, with gruff words and even a few kicks, he cannot convince the woman to leave. Liza feels badly about it all: that the legacy of the house should die now with their strange, broken Western family; for surely her father will not pay for any repairs.

But Kyoko is a dutiful servant, and Liza's father enjoys the Japanese cuisine she cooks for them, and he enjoys that she rarely speaks and does not contend with his will to eat alone or his tendency not to emerge from his chambers for days on end. Kyoko bonds instead with Liza, looks after her and teaches her the language. She takes her to the market to procure yukata for the oncoming heat of summer and to purchase silk and fur, to start work on what would be Liza's winter kimono. Liza, accustomed to heavy dresses, itchy undergarments, and elaborate hoopskirts, is instantly drawn to the hand-me-down kimono that Kyoko offers her, and the old woman has to demonstrate through pantomimes of shivering and sweating which garments are appropriate for which season so that Liza does not attempt to leave the house in a fur-trimmed kurisode.

By the end of the third month, Liza can tie her own obi in several different styles. It is a skill she does not practice often, though. As soon as Liza witnesses a woman riding by the house on horseback in a pair of what look to be oversized pantaloons, she darts over to Kyoko's family hovel to ask what they are called. Kyoko's deceased husband had owned the exact item, several pair, and Liza locks herself in her room until she can figure out how to properly wear the rather tattered garment, called hakama. She stands and inspects them in her mother's looking glass atop her old boudoir, marveling at the strange and wonderful country that lets women wear men's garments and ascend to positions of power and stature all on their own. From then on, only on special occasions would Liza Hawkeye don anything other than a simple haori shirt and her patchwork hakama.

As soon as they are settled in, word begins to spread of her father's alchemical abilities and his in-progress theorems on the secrets of producing raw fire through alchemy. Interests are sparked, curiosities shown, and curses muttered. To some, alchemy is still regarded as a form of sorcery. Liza wakes on more than one occasion to find the outside of their home smeared with feces and other filth, Kyoko washing the stains away in diligence, a rag tied over her frowning nose and mouth.

Liza's father had wanted so badly to escape from the demands of his countrymen and the abounding requests for his tutelage that he whisked himself and his daughter away to another world entirely. Here, he can work in relative peace, and here he can continue to avoid his child, who so terribly reminds him of his beloved wife. But the prospective students still come even here, and he turns them all away with indifference and the occasional rasping insult. All but one.

Liza knows he has a chance the moment she sees him. He is a boy of 15, almost three years older than Liza, and she watches him through the window as her father grabs him by the collar and throws him out beyond the gate and into the muddy road. Her father swears to her weeks later that he only consented to teach the boy because the boy's incessant nagging was simply too much too bear for an old codger. Liza knows better. She can see the glint in her old man's eyes when he regards his new charge, and she can see that he has been waiting for the right student all along. But Old Man Hawkeye does not tell the boy of his decision; he lets the child believe he has no hope of apprenticing himself at all. But the boy, determined and filled with fire, sits for three days outside the yard, moving only once or twice to relieve himself in the bamboo forest behind the house, never leaving the yard nor having anything to eat or drink. When it begins to pour on the third day, and he has been sitting out there in the storm for four hours straight, shivering like a leaf, Liza considers bringing him a blanket, but she knows that would make his efforts all for naught. So she comes away from the window when Kyoko scolds her for staring, but is not at all surprised when, several hours later, her father emerges in the yard. A lantern bobbing in his hand, he walks out towards the small, wet form that is leaning against his fence, deep in a feverish sleep. He prods the boy with his walking stick, laughing as the child falls into a puddle before shaking himself awake. Liza slides the shoji paneling open just wide enough that she can hear her father say, in his broken Japanese "get in here, your food's getting cold."

His name is Roi Mustang, and Liza likes him immediately. This, she supposes, probably has less to do with the fact that he's a young man and she's a young woman— as Kyoko insists must be the case—but because Liza has never had anyone near her own age to talk to before. Not that Roi talks much that first night. They learn his name is really Ryoji, and his western family name is the gift of his foster mother, a Dutch brothel madam two villages away. In any case, Liza has never really had a friend besides Kyoko, and she is determined, in her own silent way, that Roi Mustang should be her first.

She does not cajole or plead for his attention when he settles in for breakfast with the family each morning before dawn, nor does she quite ignore him. After thirteen years of holding her tongue, Liza has become an expert in the art of seeming indifferent. And though he is careful and on his toes for the first month or so of his apprenticeship, when Liza grabs his hand to balance as they cross the log bridge home one afternoon, Roi Mustang can see that perhaps, eventually, he will have something of use to say to this girl, who so clearly hides a fire of her own.

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Thanks for reading, I hope you liked it! Feel free to leave any feedback, positive or negative. Happy Royai Day! :D

Glossary of Japanese Terms

Geta- wooden sandals worn by men and women, with many different styles.Katana- a Japanese sword, with a single-edged blade, the preferred weapon of the samurai.Yukata- a cotton kimono for summer.Kurisode- a heavy outer layer of kimono worn in winter, often padded or trimmed in fur.Hakama- wrap-pants with multiple folds that appear almost like a skirt.Haori- a shirt, similar in style to the kimono.Ryoji- a Japanese boy's name. I just wanted to find a normal one to use and make "Roi" a nickname. :) 


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